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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2025
Between Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of the Year and Publishers Weekly‘s freshly-announced Best Books, I’m starting to think this year’s lists are going to be all over the place. It’s too early to say for certain as these are, after all, the earliest announcements on the block, but I was more surprised by what I didn’t find on PW‘s lists, which include an overall top 10 and lists for 12 categories, than what I did find. Reading is subjective and each outlet approaches their Best ofs looking through a unique lens, but I admit I expected to see, for instance, R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis under SF/Fantasy/Horror (which is such a short list!), Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This under Nonfiction, and S.A. Cosby’s King of Ashes under Mystery/Thriller. The titles I wasn’t surprised to find included were Katie Kitamura’s Audition, Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, and Jordan Thomas’s When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World all under PW’s Top 10 picks; Nicholas Boggs’ Baldwin: A Love Story under Nonfiction; Angela Flournoy’s The Wilderness and Souvankham Thammavongsa’s Pick a Color under Fiction. I also have to remind myself that there won’t always be crossover between books selected for this year’s major book awards and those selected for Best ofs, but it’s been a strange year in books with mixed feelings about the quality of reads being published and, so far, those vibes are showing up on these lists.
If You Want to Start Reading Zadie Smith…
One publishing darling noticeably missing from both aforementioned Best ofs is Zadie Smith, the prolific author of literary fiction and nonfiction whose newest collection of essays, Dead and Alive, is out tomorrow. For the fans out there, not to worry, Smith has been getting plenty of attention in recent days with a ranking of Zadie Smith’s best books out from The Guardian and a Smith essay published in Vogue, “Can You Be Serious and Seriously Glamorous?” As someone who spent my formative years wearing clothing most would call highly un-serious, the Vogue piece pulled me in and made me glad to be, if not glamorous, at least comfortable in pink wigs, bold fabrics, and platform boots. If you’re curious about Smith, the essay is a good, quick way to get a feel for her writing, and if you’re ready to jump into a full book but want an approach that isn’t picking up whatever is newest, check out The Guardian rankings for a starting place. My first Smith read, White Teeth, ranks second, and the experience told me Smith is a formidable writer.
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A Bookish Countdown to Halloween
Because it’s one of my favorite times of year, I’m celebrating by sharing some fun, book-related Halloween finds around the web each day of the week through the big day this Friday! Let’s kick things off with a cute and clever bookish Dracula comic, and a weeklong Horror Popup tourney from The Morning News. The tourney invites you to vote on new and old horror classics, using their summer Tournament of Books framework. Cast your votes to help advance your favorite horror reads (you know I voted for Silvia Moreno Garcia’s Mexican Gothic and P. Djèlí Clark’s Ring Shout).
October’s Indie Bestsellers, BIPOC Edition
Among the bestselling books in independent bookstores across the U.S. is the controversial Harry Potter fanfic, Alchemised by SenLin Yu. Find out what the criticism is about, and check out the rest of this month’s wide-ranging indie bestsellers by BIPOC authors here.
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